Week 9: Opening our Heart to Love
Including Holy Week guided practices & meditations
O, Beloved, You invite us to rest in the abode of your Heart, to forgive our weaknesses and renew our love. Who will respond with hearts opened wide to Love? -Psalm 15, Psalms for Praying by Nan Merrill
In our journey From Wounds to Wisdom, we journey inward, noticing the fears, uncovering the internal narratives, beholding our wounds with compassion. Teresa of Avila’s describes the journey of the soul as an Interior Castle, our internal narratives likened to reptiles of the mind (see Encountering the Reptiles newsletter).
Yet the entire castle is already in God’s Ocean of Love and no inward journey or lack thereof will change that. No inner work, no transformation can make us more in God. We don’t embark on the interior journey, to get to God’s love. We live in Love, in the Ocean of Love. It’s a fully both-and concept, too much for our minds to grapple with.
Yet we can become more aware of our dwelling place. We are invited to clear the interior clutter, examine the tender wounds and disordered attachments, behold the adapted behaviors that cloud our heart’s openness to living in Love and experiencing peace and joy. To open our heart. Our heart that dwells in the Ocean of Love, yet is often so clouded through wounds and fears.
Our heart has closed for good reasons. The goal is not to force it open, like a clam shell shut. (See last week’s newsletter: At the Table with our Fears)
Walking by the ocean, I watch the seagulls drop clams down hard on rocks or sand below, over and over again, until they break open. Sometimes we are broken open, through coming to the end of ourselves and our strategies. Richard Rohr calls this the crisis of limitations.
When I burnt out from my codependent workaholism, I hit my crisis of limitations. It broke me open. Tears flowed as I realized how broken I actually was, how unwell I was. This led me on the path of recovery, admitting the first step, that I was not okay and needed help. I had been on what some call the ‘heroic journey’ and by the grace and love of Love, I’m seeking to walk the wisdom journey. Integrating my brokenness and belovedness. I’m now so glad for that crisis of limitations, yet it is never something we choose or force on our selves our others.
After we hit our crisis of limitations we can either become an ‘old fool’ who doesn’t get it and tries to keep ascending the culturally influenced ladder of power, control, prestige, and impact. Or we let our learnings be compost for sprouts of ’holy fool’ wisdom by the extravagant tenderness of God. A ‘holy fool’ lives embodied and free to be themselves. When they relapse to old behavior and thoughts, they recognize this, and return to the embrace of Love and self-compassion. Maybe not that moment, maybe not that day, but at some point. The goal is not perfection.
For those of you who are journeying through Holy Week this week, I’m including a few past newsletters for your choosing. As you journey through Holy Week, may you encounter the Wisdom Keeper (First Nations Version’s name for Jesus), the God of Love who enters our pain with us, bears witness to our mourning, and breathes resurrected life into our wounded places. Love is the remedy.
with gratitude to be on the journey,
Bethany Dearborn Hiser
Choose Your Own Adventure: Holy Week
Holy Week: Life in the Garden
I invite you to take a deep breath, put your feet up perhaps, or plant them firmly on the ground.
Good Friday: Allowing Ourselves to Feel
Jesus was "overcome with grief " in the garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:34, The Passion Translation.) Yet he also followed this with letting go of his need for security, affection, and control. In the presence of his Father, he relinquished it all and embraced the moment for what it was.
Holy Saturday: Allowing Ourselves to Mourn and be Heard
We had hoped... that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. ~ Luke 24:21